Stop making a fuss, my Auntie Pat blushed,

when I wouldn't sit on the empty seat

by the lady who looked like Eartha Kitt.

I was fearful of her purr and the spit

in her poisonous eyes - she'd stolen me once

from the fountain that lies in the fist

of the manicured lawn, rolled me in

dung-beetle fashion all the way to The Ponderosa.

I was rescued by an imaginary friend,

whose name I can't spell, but only pronounce.

We swam across the Atlantic together

and popped up in Queen Marla's prefab house. 

 

Everyone called my mother Marla:

she resembled Flash Gordon's partner or wife.

No-one called my father Flash. His small-time

gangster milk-cart getaways kaput;

he wore roll-neck sweaters and on Saturdays

watched Bonanza. He'd grown familiar

with his role; I leaned towards Little Joe.

One evening I saw Ironside standing up

behind the sofa. I whispered to my Auntie Pat

God is black and shaped like Britain

Who on earth do you take after, she laughed,

before running off with a Jamaican.

 

Marla wasn't really Flash Gordon's partner,

I discovered when she died. I checked

on the spelling for the wreaths and found

a minor character ruling a far away

space station; voluptuous and wilful.

Such liars, they were, that Cold War generation.